What makes a world class business team? A question I’m sure CEO’s, Business Owners and Team Trainers ask themselves every day. As business owners, I know my parents do!

Last weekend I went back home to Winchester, to see my parents, and after a heavy meal and a few glasses of wine the debate started around what makes a good boss? They said that over the last 35yrs they have seen the rewards of high performing teams as well as the downsides of unengaged teams.

After the chat with my Dad, a busy January of attending the usual glut of industry networking events and chatting with some key players in business, I just wanted to share with you their top 5 employee engagement issues and my tips from having run training and development programmes for high performing teams.

1. Inspiring Leaders
2. Level Playing Field
3. One Cause
4. Recognition & Development
5. Striving to improve

Inspiring leaders: Steve Ballmer from Microsoft energetically revs up his work force at their conference…

Not everyone needs to be this overtly enthusiastic (worn out) but all staff need an inspiring, innovating and thought provoking boss that they can look to, to provide them with knowledge and support to do their best.

Maintain a level playing field: The door is always open with my Dad and all of his employees know that they can come and chat with him anytime of day. “If you don’t address the small fires, they can turn into an inferno!”

Every day employees come up with great ideas that can make or save thousands of pounds so it’s crucial to be open and empathetic. Everyone needs to be in charge of their own destiny, so if employees have their own responsibilities things are less likely to go wrong as it will fall on their head rather than their manager.

One Cause: It only takes Al Pacino 4 minutes to drive home the importance of one cause, one goal, one inch…

Team dynamics are crucial and even if all team members have the personal drive to succeed, it has little effect unless everyone is working towards the same goal.

Recognition & Development: Individuals perform better when they have targets to work towards and recognition of achievements. If their career path and development plan is clear and an integral part of their role, employees will strive to out perform targets, especially if recognition is given along the way and targets are overtly linked to pay.

Striving to Improve: Great teams are always looking to improve their processes. We live and work in an ever-changing environment and so successful teams are always attempting to embrace the latest trends to stay one step ahead.

An example of this is companies now using social media sites such as face book and twitter for internal communications campaigns in order to engage with employees.

I think a few years ago you would have been laughed out of the CEO’s office for suggesting the use of Bebo or MySpace to communicate with the workforce!